It emerged after the game that Jol and his number two had not, as Sky Sports had reported, resigned but rather Levy had sacked them both, apparently under the impression that Sevilla boss Jaunde Ramos was an imminent arrival as Jol's replacement. Levy's admiration for the Spainard, as well as his lack of faith in Jol, had been highly publicised since club officials had been spotted having clandestine meetings in Seville and since then Jol had been reduced to a lame duck of a manager. That he was sacked before the game but allowed to continue to coach the team during the match is laughable but a depressingly unsurprising addition to a saga that has been handled atrociously by those behind the scenes at the club, with the blame falling squarely at the feet of Daniel Levy.
As the Tottenham faithful sang Jol's name into the London night, and his former team collapsed to a depressing home defeat on the pitch, the cause of our collapse from Champions League hopefuls to underachieving chumps was made all the more clear. Throughout this debacle the actual football (which must of course be the most important thing surely?) had become a mere sideshow to the main event that was Levy flirting with any manager with a decent reputation. That the show took a turn for the comic yesterday, as it emerged that Jol had been left out of the clubs Monopoly board, was just another kick in the teeth for our likeable, yet limited, former head coach.
With rumours of a breakdown in the relationship between Jol and Berbatov, as well as an atrocious all round performance against Newcastle on Monday, it appears that Levy and the board had finally lost patience with a man that they had backed to the tune of over £40m during the summer. Quite when Levy, whilst emptying the coffers in support of Jol, had decided he wasn't up to the job is unclear but the downfall of the Dutchman and the club has a whole, is difficult to explain considering the heights we have reached over the past two seasons.
Was Jol the man to take us to the promised land of the Champions League? We'll never know but his performance over the past two years warranted giving him much more of a chance than it seems Levy was willing to allow. Evidently the club had felt they have invested so heavily during the summer that any slight hint that we may not achieve the goals that had been set would be met with almost zero tolerance and so, after a stuttering start to the season, Jol's fate was sealed.
Before defeats to Sunderland and Everton had soured our start to the season I for one had been more than happy with the way Levy had gone about his business as Chairman of the club. Positive financial results as well as a seemingly genuine passion for the club made me grateful that, unlike some of our rivals, we had a sensible man steering the ship. My opinion has changed over the past few months as I watched Levy conduct himself with deplorably small amounts of candour and professionalism. From a man who disliked press conferences or undue publicity for the club, emerged a self serving, backstabbing glory seeker who was more than willing to wash the clubs dirty linen in public in order to flaunt Martin Jol's job to Europe's top coaches. All the while the team's performances on the pitch became irrelevant and understandably substandard as the players watched the money men tear their coach apart; the biggest humiliation for Jol coming from having to release a statement to the press saying that he was determined to 'try harder' in the future, as if he was some mischievous school kid being told off by his headmaster.
It's very difficult not to feel deeply sorry for Jol. He must be applauded for maintaining an astonishing level of professionalism and good spirit throughout the last two months and, with the way he has conducted himself, he is unlikely to be out of a job for long. Sure he had his faults but they've been well documented. Now that he has finally gone, and the club can move on, I think I'm one of many who would like to say:
Thank you Martin for all your hard work over the past few years. Thanks for the great memories, like beating Chelsea last year, the West Ham game at Upton Park and for coming one lasagne away from the Champions League. Thank you for installing a fighting spirit and camaraderie amongst the players and rarely making excuses during the bad times. Thanks for making us laugh and giving us a wave when maybe we were too quick to boo. Most of all, thank you for giving us the chance to dream again. Good luck for the future - we'll miss you big man.
As football fans our teams become so intrinsically connected to our own feeling of 'self' that their performances on and off the pitch have palpable effects on our moods, our state of minds and our identities. During this whole saga I've been embarrassed as to how some at the club have conducted themselves and as this soap opera unfolded there I have realised that there is little that can surprise me about Tottenham anymore. Sitting over my pint last night, attempting to make sense of all the news and contrasting emotions, I couldn't help but roll my eyes and think 'here we go again'. And yet, we'll all be back for more. We'll all be placing our faith and a unhealthily large chunk of our personal happiness and mental wellbeing in the hands of the next man who is daring enough to become the manager of our club even if most of just want to bury our heads into our hands whilst wishing it would all just go away.